Panic at the Sacrarium!
No-Eyed Man Shot!
Top Royalists Under Suspicion!
Normally, Didino Dino was not one to read the myriad scandal-sheets that plagued the city of Ul’dah. It was all trash, so he was told by those he paid to read such things, mere rags that often sought to propagandize against the rightful place of the Monetarists and the Syndicate within Ul’dahn society (though, he noted with some pleasure, a few buyouts of late had many of their editorial staff changing their tune). Even when they were aflutter with the rumors of conspiracies and Dravanian cultists lurking about the city, he’d abstained. Gerchon had requested a free hand, and Dino had given it, for as long as he was able to manage.
On the evening that the No-Eyed Man had left the estate to give his final performance, however, Dino had requested as many of the broadsheets on the incident be brought to him as soon as possible. He rose just before the noonday bell, much earlier than usual, in order to read the results along with his breakfast. Each headline left him with an increasing state of glee, and when he reached that about the Royalists, the Dunesfolk bounced in his bed, spilled a bit of his chilled apkallu egg and opo-brain soup. Well, that was all right. It was time for a new one anyhow.
The only headline that gave him pause, a slight frown, and a desire to fire the person who’d collated the information, was Spahro Llorn’s. It was an earlier article, surely mixed in with the rest of the dross, and likely relevant to the larger picture, but this kind of inattention to his specific instructions was unforgivable. He made a note to dismiss the man. Although - had he given specific instructions? Well, of course he had, he wouldn’t have said otherwise. Better to dismiss him anyway just to be sure.
The Lantern’s article was troubling, of course. It came too close to the truth, even if it was misplaced. Whether or not the No-Eyed Man had been Dravanian himself, Didino didn’t know. Gerchon had assured him otherwise, just as he’d assured him he was himself an ex-patriate. But it was still too close, and if Miss Llorn had mentioned Didino’s own name in the paper, it would have put him under suspicion. Fortunate for him, then, that no such connection appeared.
Fortunate, too, that the No-Eyed Man had been able to use the article so neatly, to deflect the claims at the scene, so the article said. Fortunate that he’d been able to implicate the Royalists that had hired the cultists to spread relics in the first place, mere moments before his tragic end. A strange thing, watching a man arrange his own demise; Didno had been sure he had a double somewhere, but no, he’d been insistent that he die, well and truly. Curious, but one rarely found a loose end that tied itself.
Between that, the sellswords in the crowd, and the assistance of the Blades, the No-Eyed Man had a final showing that left dozens injured, members of government exposed to charges of corruption, and a dramatic, definitely permanent exit. All well and good.
Didino smiled and took a sip of his soup. It wasn’t quite chilled enough, the texture of the opo brain a little rubbery. He’d have to fire the chef, as well. It had been a shame to see Gerchon take his leave from his service - he really seemed to take to being a steward. A pity that he’d parted ways once the Syndicate had taken an interest in his plan, but that, too, resulted in one less loose end to tie off.
Minor annoyances, all. The names of the Royalists that had hired the pair in the first place had been passed to the Syndicate. In due time there would be an investigation, an announcement, and their little “conspiracy†would collapse. And finally, finally, Didino would reach the upper-middle ranks of the hierarchy. Mayhaps he’d finally get an invitation to the better parties.
The thought very nearly made him spill his soup again. He was careful to finish it quickly and cleanly, however, and soon went back to sleep, never minding the spill in the sheets.
---
“It’s been nice, though,†Donnell protested, underplaying his dismay. Malin was at least well-versed enough in the nuances of his smirks to know when this one was really an upside-down frown of a very literal sort. “You haven’t had to go back to the garrison in moons.â€
Malin dared not look over her shoulder, merely shaking her head and continuing to fill her pack. “A few moons too many,†she said. “It’s been long enough that even Longhaft has looked up to wonder where the Twelve I went. Any later and he’ll be asking questions. I already expect a bell’s-long verbal report to give him.†She was careful not to say “oral.†The captain’s reputation of dallying with his soldiers was well-known, and though Donnell had never been jealous or suspicious where it wasn’t warranted, he was one to tease. If he teased, she’d turn around, and if she turned around, she’d be tempted to listen.
“Just at least consider a transfer, would you? The other orders can’t be all that bad.â€
Her face soured. The riot had passed around the news among the city’s guard posts with all due haste. It hadn’t been anywhere near as serious as the refugee outbreaks last year, but a few dozen or so saw a fair bit of action that day. She recalled one guard in particular, a bruise on the side of his jaw, chuckling and treating it like a badge of honor. This one bitch, he said, she’d put the fist to him when he was just trying to calm her down, so of course he had to kick her teeth in, and she’d fallen back with blood from her mouth, and see if she stood up again after that.
Was she a cultist, Malin had asked, in spite of her better judgment, and the guard shrugged.
Sure, he had said. Why not.
“Oh, they can,†she said to Donnell, taking another bundle of clothes from her dresser.
“Come now, at least the Rose - “
“Would still put me out in Horizon, and that’s close, but not the city. There would still be travel.†At last she turned her head, lips up in a smirk of her own. “Don’t tell me I spoiled you here in the city all this time?â€
“A bit.†He frowned, picked at the ring on his hand. He said it itched quite often, and had since they’d bonded. She tried not to think of it as an ominous sign.
Heaving a small sigh, she tied up the bag of her belongings and rose, turned towards Donnell, clasped his cheeks, pressed her lips against his temples. “You’ll be fine. You can come with me once the qiqirn aren’t like as not to kidnap you for being there. It was all work anyway, save for Starlight, so I’ll be back for Moonfire. We’ll talk transfer then. All right?â€
A bow of his head and he nodded. There was less protestation on his part, more assistance with the packing. They sorted out their affairs, said their goodbyes and loveyous, and she was out the door. She walked a hundred yalms before she let a frown crease her features.
Transfer? There was no hope of it. But try explaining that. Try explaining that it was better by far to work in the hinterlands, where the enemies were in front of you trying to attack the Highbridge road, where the corruption was a little bit of graft and a few fines and putting up with the captain leering at your arse when his usual girls were out on a mission but never touching it because he wasn’t that kind of man, where you could see a problem and make an excuse and go take care of it because everybody knew when you said you were going to try and solve a problem, they knew you meant it.
Take that, and then take the cities, where the guards were yesterday’s gangs made strong enough for someone with a shrewd mind and no scruples to decide to co-opt them, where people panicked at the mere thought of a threat they couldn’t see, but still tried to exploit it for everything it was worth, fearing dragons and their relics but making cheap fakes to sell for the faintest hope of a half-gil. Where you could find a criminal and know, know in your gut that he had done something wrong, but be unable to perform any kind of real justice between apathy from the city’s orders and the hordes of the wrong-doer’s heavily armed friends, who were sure he was being a better person now and therefore could not possibly be called to account.
Compare the two, she thought, and it was clear a transfer was impossible. It was the one gap in her marriage that would never quite be bridged. But compare it through her eyes, and a transfer was a slow creeping death, where a few compromises could be made, and then suddenly she was no better than a guard slapping his own somnus on a caravan; no better than a Monetarist hiring sellswords to hurt civilians and kill his own agents while the Blades looked the other way; no better than another leaving holy artifacts in a warehouse for some idiot peddler to loot.
Bellveil. The frown faded. In the end, she let him go, let the earnest pleas of a few of his friends convince her that three cycles in the oubliette wasn’t what he deserved for his role in the whole mess. They had insisted on his better nature, the redhead in particular. Strange that she’d accepted responsibility for the robbery, she thought, but a sun later she’d checked old records and found the woman was wanted for a half-dozen different colors of conspiracy against the state. Character references in the city were useless without references of their own.
Too late to take it back now, she supposed, as she made her way through small streets and alleys to the city gates. She could only hope he wasn’t already making her regret the decision.
---
The fire had spread faster than Verad had anticipated. He wasn’t used to the business of building funeral pyres, particularly when they were on his front lawn. The body had been cold enough thanks to being stored on top of used ice-sprite cores that he had presumed he would need to make the flame especially hot, otherwise he wouldn’t so much have cremated the remains as lightly thawed them. And, yes, true, he did stumble a bit and spill a bit more diluted ceruleum on the logs than he’d intended, and tried placing a bit of spare Vylbrand gunpowder on the logs he’d managed to stack together (a ponz was only a bit, right?), but these were all minor details in the scheme of things, mere wrinkles in the tapestry of the event that added up to a lengthy fold in the form of the semi-massive explosion that issued forth once he’d set the pyre alight with a torch.
Once Verad had regained his senses, checked to ensure he hadn’t lost his eyebrows (which was bad) or his beard (which was worse), he frantically gathered dirt from his garden patch to try and contain the blaze. Somewhere in the white-hot fire, he knew, lay the remains of the No-Eyed Man, his body recovered from the scene. Once he had enough dirt scrabbled around the blaze to hopefully contain it and keep his yard at least somewhat respectable, the Duskwight stood before it with hands folded together in front of him. Eyes closed in a respectful silence.
Kyrael, he knew, would mock him for this, but Kyrael stuck his fingers in the corpse’s nose for fun, so Verad considered the opinion unworthy of consideration. Other, more credible people might also consider this gesture somewhat amiss. Here was the funeral of a man who had riled parts of the city into panic, drawn Dravanian cells into their midst, and been at least partially responsible for Verad himself being kidnapped and nearly sacrificed out in the middle of the Sagolii. One did not need to be vindictive to find Verad’s behavior somewhat odd.
What he would tell people, he thought as he watched the blaze, his eyes lowered enough to avoid being blinded by the bright light of a white-hot fire, was that it may have been so, but if he did not respect someone who had been his enemy after a fashion, then he could hardly respect himself. Dubiousness was all well and good, but it was possible to be both dubious and decent.
What he could not tell people, save in this moment, he murmured to the by-now ashen remains.
“I am sorry,†he whispered, his voice making the noise a bit low. “You were brought here because of my own foolishness, and mayhaps you needn’t be here at all otherwise.â€
People would argue with Verad on this point, he knew, as they had several times. He would, publicly at least, agree with them. But it was still his hands that left a warehouse door open, that left a pile of relics to fall into the hands of the Ul’dahn populace, and left the city open to the predations of mischief makers like Gerchon. He was as complicit as the hands that brought the relics to the city in the first place.
“We thought you a pawn at first, of your partner,†he said, as if the fire could listen. “But you had your own plans, didn’t you? The Lay of Leofric, the stones . . . “
Verad quickly shook his head. There was no use speculating. The leads were dead in their entirety, in many cases quite literally. “Whether it was my hand alone or something else that brought you here,†he finished, “I’m sorry it ended this way.â€
That said, he took a deep breath, and made a small gesture in worship of Oschon at his chest. “May your path on the lifestream guide you to a better one than this.â€
A spark jumped and hit the grass. Verad yelped, and stomped it out with his boot. He went looking for more dirt. The blaze was growing, and the smoke rose high; someone from the Goblet Housing Authority was sure to file a complaint.
No-Eyed Man Shot!
Top Royalists Under Suspicion!
Normally, Didino Dino was not one to read the myriad scandal-sheets that plagued the city of Ul’dah. It was all trash, so he was told by those he paid to read such things, mere rags that often sought to propagandize against the rightful place of the Monetarists and the Syndicate within Ul’dahn society (though, he noted with some pleasure, a few buyouts of late had many of their editorial staff changing their tune). Even when they were aflutter with the rumors of conspiracies and Dravanian cultists lurking about the city, he’d abstained. Gerchon had requested a free hand, and Dino had given it, for as long as he was able to manage.
On the evening that the No-Eyed Man had left the estate to give his final performance, however, Dino had requested as many of the broadsheets on the incident be brought to him as soon as possible. He rose just before the noonday bell, much earlier than usual, in order to read the results along with his breakfast. Each headline left him with an increasing state of glee, and when he reached that about the Royalists, the Dunesfolk bounced in his bed, spilled a bit of his chilled apkallu egg and opo-brain soup. Well, that was all right. It was time for a new one anyhow.
The only headline that gave him pause, a slight frown, and a desire to fire the person who’d collated the information, was Spahro Llorn’s. It was an earlier article, surely mixed in with the rest of the dross, and likely relevant to the larger picture, but this kind of inattention to his specific instructions was unforgivable. He made a note to dismiss the man. Although - had he given specific instructions? Well, of course he had, he wouldn’t have said otherwise. Better to dismiss him anyway just to be sure.
The Lantern’s article was troubling, of course. It came too close to the truth, even if it was misplaced. Whether or not the No-Eyed Man had been Dravanian himself, Didino didn’t know. Gerchon had assured him otherwise, just as he’d assured him he was himself an ex-patriate. But it was still too close, and if Miss Llorn had mentioned Didino’s own name in the paper, it would have put him under suspicion. Fortunate for him, then, that no such connection appeared.
Fortunate, too, that the No-Eyed Man had been able to use the article so neatly, to deflect the claims at the scene, so the article said. Fortunate that he’d been able to implicate the Royalists that had hired the cultists to spread relics in the first place, mere moments before his tragic end. A strange thing, watching a man arrange his own demise; Didno had been sure he had a double somewhere, but no, he’d been insistent that he die, well and truly. Curious, but one rarely found a loose end that tied itself.
Between that, the sellswords in the crowd, and the assistance of the Blades, the No-Eyed Man had a final showing that left dozens injured, members of government exposed to charges of corruption, and a dramatic, definitely permanent exit. All well and good.
Didino smiled and took a sip of his soup. It wasn’t quite chilled enough, the texture of the opo brain a little rubbery. He’d have to fire the chef, as well. It had been a shame to see Gerchon take his leave from his service - he really seemed to take to being a steward. A pity that he’d parted ways once the Syndicate had taken an interest in his plan, but that, too, resulted in one less loose end to tie off.
Minor annoyances, all. The names of the Royalists that had hired the pair in the first place had been passed to the Syndicate. In due time there would be an investigation, an announcement, and their little “conspiracy†would collapse. And finally, finally, Didino would reach the upper-middle ranks of the hierarchy. Mayhaps he’d finally get an invitation to the better parties.
The thought very nearly made him spill his soup again. He was careful to finish it quickly and cleanly, however, and soon went back to sleep, never minding the spill in the sheets.
---
“It’s been nice, though,†Donnell protested, underplaying his dismay. Malin was at least well-versed enough in the nuances of his smirks to know when this one was really an upside-down frown of a very literal sort. “You haven’t had to go back to the garrison in moons.â€
Malin dared not look over her shoulder, merely shaking her head and continuing to fill her pack. “A few moons too many,†she said. “It’s been long enough that even Longhaft has looked up to wonder where the Twelve I went. Any later and he’ll be asking questions. I already expect a bell’s-long verbal report to give him.†She was careful not to say “oral.†The captain’s reputation of dallying with his soldiers was well-known, and though Donnell had never been jealous or suspicious where it wasn’t warranted, he was one to tease. If he teased, she’d turn around, and if she turned around, she’d be tempted to listen.
“Just at least consider a transfer, would you? The other orders can’t be all that bad.â€
Her face soured. The riot had passed around the news among the city’s guard posts with all due haste. It hadn’t been anywhere near as serious as the refugee outbreaks last year, but a few dozen or so saw a fair bit of action that day. She recalled one guard in particular, a bruise on the side of his jaw, chuckling and treating it like a badge of honor. This one bitch, he said, she’d put the fist to him when he was just trying to calm her down, so of course he had to kick her teeth in, and she’d fallen back with blood from her mouth, and see if she stood up again after that.
Was she a cultist, Malin had asked, in spite of her better judgment, and the guard shrugged.
Sure, he had said. Why not.
“Oh, they can,†she said to Donnell, taking another bundle of clothes from her dresser.
“Come now, at least the Rose - “
“Would still put me out in Horizon, and that’s close, but not the city. There would still be travel.†At last she turned her head, lips up in a smirk of her own. “Don’t tell me I spoiled you here in the city all this time?â€
“A bit.†He frowned, picked at the ring on his hand. He said it itched quite often, and had since they’d bonded. She tried not to think of it as an ominous sign.
Heaving a small sigh, she tied up the bag of her belongings and rose, turned towards Donnell, clasped his cheeks, pressed her lips against his temples. “You’ll be fine. You can come with me once the qiqirn aren’t like as not to kidnap you for being there. It was all work anyway, save for Starlight, so I’ll be back for Moonfire. We’ll talk transfer then. All right?â€
A bow of his head and he nodded. There was less protestation on his part, more assistance with the packing. They sorted out their affairs, said their goodbyes and loveyous, and she was out the door. She walked a hundred yalms before she let a frown crease her features.
Transfer? There was no hope of it. But try explaining that. Try explaining that it was better by far to work in the hinterlands, where the enemies were in front of you trying to attack the Highbridge road, where the corruption was a little bit of graft and a few fines and putting up with the captain leering at your arse when his usual girls were out on a mission but never touching it because he wasn’t that kind of man, where you could see a problem and make an excuse and go take care of it because everybody knew when you said you were going to try and solve a problem, they knew you meant it.
Take that, and then take the cities, where the guards were yesterday’s gangs made strong enough for someone with a shrewd mind and no scruples to decide to co-opt them, where people panicked at the mere thought of a threat they couldn’t see, but still tried to exploit it for everything it was worth, fearing dragons and their relics but making cheap fakes to sell for the faintest hope of a half-gil. Where you could find a criminal and know, know in your gut that he had done something wrong, but be unable to perform any kind of real justice between apathy from the city’s orders and the hordes of the wrong-doer’s heavily armed friends, who were sure he was being a better person now and therefore could not possibly be called to account.
Compare the two, she thought, and it was clear a transfer was impossible. It was the one gap in her marriage that would never quite be bridged. But compare it through her eyes, and a transfer was a slow creeping death, where a few compromises could be made, and then suddenly she was no better than a guard slapping his own somnus on a caravan; no better than a Monetarist hiring sellswords to hurt civilians and kill his own agents while the Blades looked the other way; no better than another leaving holy artifacts in a warehouse for some idiot peddler to loot.
Bellveil. The frown faded. In the end, she let him go, let the earnest pleas of a few of his friends convince her that three cycles in the oubliette wasn’t what he deserved for his role in the whole mess. They had insisted on his better nature, the redhead in particular. Strange that she’d accepted responsibility for the robbery, she thought, but a sun later she’d checked old records and found the woman was wanted for a half-dozen different colors of conspiracy against the state. Character references in the city were useless without references of their own.
Too late to take it back now, she supposed, as she made her way through small streets and alleys to the city gates. She could only hope he wasn’t already making her regret the decision.
---
The fire had spread faster than Verad had anticipated. He wasn’t used to the business of building funeral pyres, particularly when they were on his front lawn. The body had been cold enough thanks to being stored on top of used ice-sprite cores that he had presumed he would need to make the flame especially hot, otherwise he wouldn’t so much have cremated the remains as lightly thawed them. And, yes, true, he did stumble a bit and spill a bit more diluted ceruleum on the logs than he’d intended, and tried placing a bit of spare Vylbrand gunpowder on the logs he’d managed to stack together (a ponz was only a bit, right?), but these were all minor details in the scheme of things, mere wrinkles in the tapestry of the event that added up to a lengthy fold in the form of the semi-massive explosion that issued forth once he’d set the pyre alight with a torch.
Once Verad had regained his senses, checked to ensure he hadn’t lost his eyebrows (which was bad) or his beard (which was worse), he frantically gathered dirt from his garden patch to try and contain the blaze. Somewhere in the white-hot fire, he knew, lay the remains of the No-Eyed Man, his body recovered from the scene. Once he had enough dirt scrabbled around the blaze to hopefully contain it and keep his yard at least somewhat respectable, the Duskwight stood before it with hands folded together in front of him. Eyes closed in a respectful silence.
Kyrael, he knew, would mock him for this, but Kyrael stuck his fingers in the corpse’s nose for fun, so Verad considered the opinion unworthy of consideration. Other, more credible people might also consider this gesture somewhat amiss. Here was the funeral of a man who had riled parts of the city into panic, drawn Dravanian cells into their midst, and been at least partially responsible for Verad himself being kidnapped and nearly sacrificed out in the middle of the Sagolii. One did not need to be vindictive to find Verad’s behavior somewhat odd.
What he would tell people, he thought as he watched the blaze, his eyes lowered enough to avoid being blinded by the bright light of a white-hot fire, was that it may have been so, but if he did not respect someone who had been his enemy after a fashion, then he could hardly respect himself. Dubiousness was all well and good, but it was possible to be both dubious and decent.
What he could not tell people, save in this moment, he murmured to the by-now ashen remains.
“I am sorry,†he whispered, his voice making the noise a bit low. “You were brought here because of my own foolishness, and mayhaps you needn’t be here at all otherwise.â€
People would argue with Verad on this point, he knew, as they had several times. He would, publicly at least, agree with them. But it was still his hands that left a warehouse door open, that left a pile of relics to fall into the hands of the Ul’dahn populace, and left the city open to the predations of mischief makers like Gerchon. He was as complicit as the hands that brought the relics to the city in the first place.
“We thought you a pawn at first, of your partner,†he said, as if the fire could listen. “But you had your own plans, didn’t you? The Lay of Leofric, the stones . . . “
Verad quickly shook his head. There was no use speculating. The leads were dead in their entirety, in many cases quite literally. “Whether it was my hand alone or something else that brought you here,†he finished, “I’m sorry it ended this way.â€
That said, he took a deep breath, and made a small gesture in worship of Oschon at his chest. “May your path on the lifestream guide you to a better one than this.â€
A spark jumped and hit the grass. Verad yelped, and stomped it out with his boot. He went looking for more dirt. The blaze was growing, and the smoke rose high; someone from the Goblet Housing Authority was sure to file a complaint.
Verad Bellveil's Profile | The Case of the Ransacked Rug | Verad's Fate Sheet
Current Fate-14 Storyline:Â Merchant, Marine
Current Fate-14 Storyline:Â Merchant, Marine
